Fatally Yours
by KatanaDoshi
Summary: There is a dark side to all things; this is true even for a being already split in two. It is unwise to think that the darkness can be quelled with promises and threats. It is unwise to meddle in things you do not fully understand.
1. Prologue

Fatally Yours

Sumary: There is a dark side to all things; this is true even for a being already split in two. It is unwise to think that the darkness can be quelled with promises and threats. It is unwise to meddle in things you do not fully understand.

A/N: Remember how I told you in NRFtW that you needed to play close attention to the genre and ratings on my stories? _This_ is the reason. Horror, Angst, Drama, AU. This story does not mix and match with ItDoN (even though it looks like it might) or any of my other works. Characterization, dialogue and style is the same only because that's how I write these characters.

Warnings: Language, gore, blood, torture and other mature themes.

Spoilers: All episodes up to and including Ransom

Disclaimer: Gargoyles… _Disney… Buena Vista… Greg Weisman… not me._

* * *

Prologue: A Wicked Plot

When things are simple and calm it is easy to become careless. Carelessness was how Generals lost wars, how fools lost their fortunes, how empires met their end. Owen tried very hard not to be careless but he was not perfect and he could not predict everything. Sometimes things go awry in ways you can't prepare for and sometimes you can't control your wilder side.

(Line Break)

In a dark room a group of men sat in silence, watching a computer monitor.

On the screen a burst of white light seemed to engulf the form of a very small child that had been in the way of weapons fire. When the light cleared the child, now several feet from where he had been, was laughing.

The leader of the group, a heavy man in an ill-fitted suit with thinning brown hair, opened another window and played another clip. Another burst of light, this one almost human shaped, floating over the orange haired kid. Then there was another clip. And another.

When Eliot Staine was fourteen years old, he got beaten up for reading Peter Pan in the school cafeteria. The group of older boys had called him all sorts of names and accused him of believing in fairies. The beating hadn't lasted long because the year prior, young Eliot had learned the value of viciousness and dirty tactics. Two of the boys had ended up in the hospital and the other three never bothered him again.

Eliot _had_ believed in fairies. He believed in them the same way his little sister liked to believe in real-life Fairy Godmothers: When you're dirt poor and life sucks, you've got to believe there's a little magic out there.

As he'd grown and earned a name for himself as the baddest of the bad, became close with the right class of criminal and started his own little organization Staine hadn't needed to believe in fairies anymore. Because by then he _knew_.

He'd seen magic - not the slight of hand you saw on the streets; _real_ magic - and known it for what it was. He'd seen monsters in the jungles his business occasionally took him away to, he'd seen the shapes of men dancing in the duststorms of the desert, he'd seen creatures with no logical explanation perform deeds beyond anything man could carry out alone. He knew.

Good thing too. Now that Staine was old enough, strong enough, connected enough to use it the knowledge could give him the one thing he'd wanted since he'd been that dirt poor child. Power.

"How 'bout it boys?" he asked after the last clip - bought for a high price from a friend who had managed to access David Xanatos's private files - had finished playing. "Who's up for catchin' a fairy?"

* * *

A/N: If you've ever seen the anime Hell Girl then your ahead of the curb and know how to envision the story overall, mentally. If you haven't, go look up a "Hellgirl Avenged" clip or two on youtube totally at random and chances are you'll get the basic idea. This is not a crossover, there's just a shared style that you might benefit from seeing.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Feel free to blame this for the recent shortage of quality ItB posts since I did set that aside in favor of having this up for Halloween. And if I planned everything right the last chapter and epilogue will be up by midnight on Halloween so that you can cheerfully read it all in one go or take it bit by bit leading up to Halloween to get you in the spooky-mood. Whatever floats your boat.

Spoilers: All episodes up to and including Ransom

Warnings: Horror, Gore, Torture

* * *

Part 1: Night Terror

Owen felt something was wrong long before the alarms; felt the ache in his bones before the first sign.

He was down the hall, running barefoot and wearing only a pair of well worn flannel pants before Fox, woken from sleep by a mother's intuition, stepped groggily into the nursery to check on her son.

He was the first to hear the heartbroken shriek that tore its way from her throat at the sight in the child's bedroom.

ear-splitting and horrible in its desperation, the scream felt like it went on forever. Owen caught himself against the door frame, feet just outside the room when Fox's lungs finally ran out of air. He watched her, silent, as she crumpled in a heap at the side of the cradle. He didn't have to look to know what was making the tears flow down her cheeks.

"David!" She was hoarse from the first cry. David would have woken and started running sometime during her first shrieks but shock and desperation had her screaming still. "David!" Owen finally stepped into the room, the stone cold under his feet. The woman looked up at him, at his grim face, as her husband flew into the room behind him.

"What-"

"Where is he?" Fox didn't look to her husband, green eyes wide and focused only on Owen. Behind him Owen felt more than heard David's sharp inhale. The darker man shoved his friend to the side as he rushed forward. The pram was empty. "Where is he?!"

For a moment the word wouldn't come and the blond - most trusted friend of this man, surrogate brother to this woman, Godfather and Guardian to their only child - stood silent, watching their pain as though far apart.

"Gone," he said finally. Behind him he could hear the scramble of talons on the stone. David was tearing the blankets and pillows and even sheets from his son's bed as though the two year old might have somehow hidden himself there. Owen might have joined that search, were it not for the words splashed in black across the far wall.

Lexington made it through the door first. He took in the sight of Fox, kneeling in only her thin nightgown at the side of the cradle; at David in sweat pants, hair disheveled and still looking, still pulling apart that little bed; at Owen's silent figure and roared.

"No!"

Owen could feel the rest of the green gargoyles unspoken words. _Not again_, was in that loud, ominous screech. _I promised never again_.

Goliath and Brooklyn followed.

"What's happened?" the clan leader asked before spying the black mar on the wall. Fox finally tore her eyes away from Owen and the blond could see the rage seep into her form, holding her up and giving her strength where a moment before there had been none.

"Where were you?" she screamed at the gargoyles. Broadway and Angela were gone, they were not expected back until the following evening. These gargoyles though, these had no excuse. Fox stood, starting toward them. "Where were you?!"

Behind her Xanatos had stopped, hunched over the cradle, holding himself up on the high wooden sides. superfluous, Own thought. Alexander could, if he wanted to, fly out or even teleport from the room. That was not what had happened.

Lexington curled in on himself, head in his hands. Fox raged.

"You said you'd make sure it would never happen again!" her voice was shrill, taking on the quality of someone who would soon lose the ability to speak all together. "You're supposed to keep us safe!"

She turned, suddenly, on her husband.

"What happened to the alarms? Why didn't the security system alert us?" David remained hunched over the bed, head bowed. "You said it wouldn't happen again!" He didn't answer.

"We have to find him," Lex unfurled and flung himself toward the door. The change was so sudden for a moment Owen didn't think anyone could stop him. Brooklyn caught the smaller gargoyle and held tight. "LET GO!"

"It's nearly dawn!" the red gargoyle grunted as his rookery brother kicked and scratched and struggled. "Stop it Lex! There's nothing we can do!"

"You!" Fox had been silent and still long enough to reread the ugly mark on her son's wall and turned on Owen now, furious, fists raised. "Where were _you_? You're supposed to watch after him!" She hit him, fist balled, on the shoulder. It hurt, but he knew her training, knew how badly she could damage him if she were trying. "Oberon told you to protect him!" she hit him again, in the solar-plexis, and Owen gasped. She dissolved into sobs, the pounding against his chest becoming weak. "It wasn't supposed to happen again."

Owen looked down at the woman that had attacked him in her rage and sorrow. Saw how frail and mortal she was and turned his gaze away. He looked at the tense lines of his friend's bare shoulders as he stood, still bent over Alexander's bed, no doubt thinking of all the possible ways his security system might have failed him when it clearly had mattered the most and Owen thought _I'm no use to them. I can do no good here_.

Owen felt his hands move, felt his lips form words and heard his voice speak as though from a different room. His hands cupped Fox's face.

"Fox," his voice said. He waited and she struck him again, as he'd known she would. "Fox," slowly she looked up to Owen's face and met blue eyes that were vaguely familiar, but not his. "I will bring him back."

Her eyes watered and new tears flowed. Her face twisted and Owen caught Fox by the upper arms before she could fall to the stone floor again. He looked into her wet, green eyes and remembered the wild, vengeful and often violent half-fae she'd been before the Xanatos family's collective reform. A pretty face to show to the world and to hide the truth beneath. Motherhood had calmed her, yes, but their kind never changed. Not really.

He leaned forward, touching their foreheads together and made a promise, one "reformed" fae to another.

"When I find the ones that did this," he said softly, for her ears only. "I'll be sure that they pay."

In his arms, Fox stilled, her face slowly easing into calm. Her breath slowed.

"Make them hurt," she ordered. A cold smiled tugged at Owen's lips. "Make them scream."

(Line Break)

On Owen's thirty-first birthday David Xanatos had bought him a car and presented it to him with an attractive young woman sitting in the passenger's seat. David liked to say that Owen's middle name should be legally changed to Taking-Things-In-Stride, which wasn't a statement the blond had ever felt needed to be justified with response, so he'd accepted the keys gratefully and thanked his employer for not having the young lady pop out of a cake.

Owen liked to think that David's random, embarrassing acts of kindness were the darker man's way of defining and maintaining their relationship. Left to his own devises Owen was prone to start treating David - and by extension his family - like royalty and the occasional movie night/blind date/frequent teasing helped to remind him that David didn't see him as servant. To Mr. Xanatos, Owen Burnett was friend. Maybe even family.

If David Xanatos wanted to see Owen Burnett as family then the blond would not deny him. He would hold his head high, accept the teasing as a matter of course and he would view the Xanatos clan as his own.

He did not like to see harm come to his family.

When Owen appeared on the street below the Eyrie Building it was without fanfare. The blond faded into existence on the empty early morning side walk in his customary suit and tie because in all things, he'd reasoned, it was best to dress for success.

Owen absolutely intended to succeed.

(Line Break)

Elisa was yawning and ignoring the knowing look on her partner's face when her phone rang. She sighed the sigh of the weary and wellworn; knowing that since her shift would be officially over in exactly five minutes that the call would be an emergency of some sort that would keep her from her nice warm bed.

"Detective Maza, NYPD. What can I-"

"_Detective, please_," the voice on the other end sounded familiar but the crazed sobs in the background prevented Elisa from making the connection. "_It's an emergency. I need you to come to the Castle. Don't tell your superiors_."

"Xanatos?" Elisa sat up, exhaustion forgotten. Seeing her change Matt sat up as well, handing her pen and paper, expression intent. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"_I can't_-" A crash, more sobbing. "_Please come. There's no one else we can call_."

He hung up then, or was disconnected. Elisa didn't stop to grab her jacket as she sprinted to the door, Matt fast on her heels.

"What's going on? Elisa!"

"We're going to the Eyrie Building, you got your gun?" Matt stared, surprised, before nodding and sliding into the passenger seat of her car.

Many traffic laws were broken that early morning.

(Line Break)

The man made an admirable attempt to force Owen back out the apartment door by brandishing a knife wildly. Kicking the door shut behind him Owen blocked the blade with his hand and hissed as the carbon steel edge broke skin. The man looked and cringed, involuntarily backing up.

Owen could imagine, without so much as glancing at his injured hand, what the wound must look like. There would be blood, yes. All flesh bled when pierced but also there would be a mar. Purple and fetid looking, spindling out along the edges of the cut like the veins of a leaf.

It was enough to distract his adversary. The back hand Owen dealt him was not particularly hard, but considering the stone fist he dealt it with he was not surprised as the man fell back, clutching his jaw.

The blond did not pause, did not hesitate, did not regret.

He picked up the man's hastily dropped knife, ignoring the burn that would stay with him for longer than the cut should need to heal, and pressed his stone forearm against the man's throat.

In slow movements, Owen pushed him back until he was trapped against a wall, struggling to breathe.

Joey Matherson was a thirty year old, black-haired, hardened criminal with a weathered face and a severe case of self-inflicted malnutrition. Other than drug possession his favorite laws to break involved other people's property and the soft easily bruised faces of barely legal women.

The only sins Matherson was guilty of this week were of being overly fond of alchohol, of being a loud and abusive drunk, of frequenting the bars and clubs favored by New York's most infamous criminals, and of gleefully helping said criminals comit their crimes.

Owen felt very little guilt over what he did next.

"What the f-" Joey's scream might have attracted attention if the building wasn't near abandoned thanks to its decrepitude and the fact that he'd left his television playing loudly when he'd answered his door. Owen rested more of his weight against the arm holding Joey against the wall, preventing the man from doubling over in pain.

"Someone kidnapped Alexander Xanatos this evening. Tell me who," Owen's voice was steady and clear over the sound of his victim's panted breaths.

"Do I look stupid to you? I'm not tellin' you nothin'," in a single fluid movement Owen dropped his arm, knelt, and slammed his stone fist into Joey's knee. With a strangled cry the man dropped to the floor, swearing.

"That was your knee cap shattering," Owen informed the man coolly. "I know you supply equipment and industrial supplies to the local criminals," Joey was too busy failing to crawl away to deny the statement. "This person would have ordered iron. Iron chains, iron bars, iron plates and pipes."

Joey's weak struggles faltered and the blond could see a flash of recognition cross his face.

"I don't-" Joey stopped, the blade of his own knife at his throat.

"Think harder," suggested the calm, cultured voice of the charcoal suited man that had broken into his apartment. "I won't ask you again."

"Eliot Staine," Joey knew the cost of ratting out one of his clients, but it would take a harder criminal than him to refuse a knife to the neck. "Eliot Staine ordered that stuff. Said he was gonna get the Xanatos kid; no one believed him."

"Where is Staine now?"

"I don't know," the knife pressed harder and Joey shoved the arm away, scooting as far as he could toward the door. "You can go fu-" Joey's other knee cracked and caved under the pressure of magic enforced stone.

"Now you can't walk," Owen spoke over the shouts and the cries. "What else do I have to take from you, Mr. Matherson, before you start taking me seriously?"

"I don't know!" his face was wet with sweat and tears. "It was all delivered to a place in the warehouse district."

Owen paused, sitting back on his heels and regarding the haggard, unkempt man laid out infront of him.

"The address?" Joey swore a bit hysterically at that. Owen's jaw clenched.

"I- That was weeks ago. He's been planning this for months. I don't keep the records I-" he was silenced with a short jab of Owen's fist to his abdomin.

Silent and gasping Joey could do nothing as Owen grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him to the door.

"W-what are you-"

"NYPD doesn't do much in the way of investigation in this particular section of town," Owen had practice opening doors with a closed fist and Joey's landlord had kindly furnished the doors with handles rather than more secure knobs. At the edge of the stairs Owen shifted his grip to the front of Joey's shirt and lifted him up right ignoring the smaller man's weak struggles. "The police aren't going to give much attention to the death of a known drunk falling down a flight of unstable stairs."

"Wait! Don't! Plea-"

Joey'd had a lot of clumsy girlfriends. There had been a lot of walking into doors, a lot of tripping over loose rugs. A lot of falling down stairs.

If he'd known how badly it hurt, Joey thought just before the second to last step broke his neck, he'd never have pushed Maria off that same flight two months ago.

* * *

A/N: This fic is unique in that I wrote it entirely out-of-order. I named the chapters, wrote the outline for each chapter (to avoid the same issues I have with ItB) and then started with the most important (or bloodiest) scenes and wrote my way outwards. It was fun piecing the bits together.

Side Note: Carbon Steel is made with iron. Iron, from what we saw in the cartoon, can severely weaken Oberon. The iron chains on Puck only seemed to bind him though. I find that annoying so... RETCON. Think of it this way: Post-Gathering Puck is even weaker to iron than he was before and the sensitivity affects Owen because shut up.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: I will repeat for those of you who may have missed it: this story does not mix and match with anything else I write. It does not follow my head-canon AT ALL and it does not follow any of the previously established rules I've used for my Owen-fics. This is also Extremely AU (follows neither my own canon nor Greg Weisman's in ways that will be made obvious quite shortly). I appologize to those of you who will be annoyed/disappointed by the turn the story is about to take but stick through to the end and I promise an explanation.

Also, I'm unlikely to have it all up by tonight. Sorry but life happens (sad face)

Spoilers: All episodes up to and including Ransom.

Warnings: Gore, graphic torture

Disclaimer: _Me no owns it_.

* * *

Part 2: A Fatal Error

The building itself was fine. The lobby was orderly and clean, the receptionist calm and pleasant as she waved the detectives past security. The elevator made no fuss about getting them up to the castle's living area.

Elisa had her gun drawn and beside her Matt was tense as the doors opened. Dawn had broken already, neither had any reason to believe that their first sight would be a gargoyle.

Hudson was crouched in the great hall, wings tucked, apparently starting a four-legged run to another part of the castle when the sun had risen. Elisa felt her heart rate quicken; the gargoyles prefered to be on the parapets when they rested during the day - were careful to ensure that they were in their respective places each dawn - Hudson shouldn't have been there.

They found Goliath in the hall, upright though no less urgent than Hudson, with his arms outstretched, palms flat in a ceasing gesture. Beyond him Lex struggled against Brooklyn who was holding the smaller gargoyle in a crushing stone hug. Goliath and Brooklyn looked pained; Lexington was wild, mouth open in a silent roar.

"What happened here?" Matt's whisper was loud in the prevailing silence. They were entering what Elisa had always considered the communal living space used more often even than the library, where the gargoyles and Xanatos family called their cease fires and came together for the sake of the little one.

A side table was in pieces, having been thrown with some force at the wall. Elisa scanned the room slowly, eyes finally landing on the couch and nearly missed the bright red strands and pale hand hanging over the edge.

Swearing, Elisa rushed to the other side of the room, this time Matt outpaced her, his fingers finding the pulse point on Fox's neck.

"Fox," Elisa knelt, taking the other woman's hand in hers when her partner signaled that the woman was alive. "Fox can you hear me?"

"She's been sedated," Elisa twisted around, gun raised, to face David Xanatos.

The man looked haggard. His eyes were heavy, his shoulders slumped. Unlike his wife he was dressed for the day but it was clear from the lines on his jacket and pants that he'd not given much attention to the task.

"What do you mean sedated?" It was with great reluctance that Elisa lowered her gun.

"Why? What happened here?" Matt, far more trusting than she, had already put his gun away. Xanatos stared at the other man for a long moment and Elisa realized that he was probably wondering what the other officer was doing there. It was no secret that Matt knew about the gargoyles but his contact with the Xanatos' had be limited.

"She was out of control," Xanatos either wasn't in the mood to argue or was obfuscating. It was hard to tell with him sometimes. The dark man nodded to the shattered table. "I didn't want her to hurt anyone."

"_Fox_ did that?" Xanatos turned his gaze from Matt entirely and gave Elisa a pointed look. It took a moment, but she finally understood.

"But I thought-" she stopped, remembering how little her partner knew and how many of her secrets weren't her own to give. "What happened?" she asked instead because it seemed a safer thing.

It wasn't though. David turned his gaze to Matt again, his eyes flat and dull though Elisa had no doubt that behind the look Xanatos was appraising her partner.

"Alex is gone," he continued, blocking out her own exclamations as well as Matt's "we can't inform the police."

"Well why not?" Matt's demand was reasonable; Elisa had been about to make it herself. "You threw a freaking press conference last time!"

"The ransom note is in the nursery," Xanatos's eyes slid from Matt's back to Elisa's. Something about this was different; this was something that the man wasn't sure Matt could be trusted to see.

Elisa knew her partner, had been through a lot with him, had suspected him of endangering the lives of her dearest friends and then seen him come through in the end. She trusted him with her life.

She glanced down at Fox, noting how small she looked in her nightgown - how weak. It wasn't unlike that Halloween not so terribly long ago when the Eye had left the redhead weeping naked and half-dead.

Elisa trusted Matt with this woman and her family and - she nodded in answer to Xanatos's unasked question - she would bear the responsibility should she turn out to be wrong.

The walk to the nursery was a quiet one. Weapons put away and adrenaline high wearing down, the quiet was almost too harsh but not even Matt could find the will to break it.

The crib had been torn apart but Elisa paid little attention to that.

"My God," Matt whispered beside her, coming to a stop just a second slower. "What...?"

In large, ugly black letters someone had smeared across the nursery wall there was a simple demand.

'Give Us The Fairy Or The Boy Dies. 24 Hours'

"Puck," Elisa breathed. Matt turned to ask what she'd meant, or perhaps to tell her to watch her language if he'd misheard, but Elisa had already turned and was already running.

(Line Break)

Tony Dracon was having an early breakfast/very late dinner when one of his men - a nameless nobody he'd hired as enforcer because the man was large and had an imposing, ugly face - stumbled in, clutching at his throat and bleeding from the mouth.

On either side of the booth Tony's men stood, raising their weapons to defend against-

Tony pushed his plate away and watched the proprietor of the establishment disappear into a back room from the corner of his eyes. If he didn't know how deeply involved the man was with criminals other than Tony he might have worried about the cops showing up. As it was, the old man was probably just going to get his shot gun.

A slender, blond man in a tailored charcoal suit stepped around the partition blocking Tony's booth from the rest of the empty restaurant and gave him a cool look.

"Damn," Tony muttered under his breath. "Staine actually did it."

It was the wrong thing to say.

(Line Break)

Xanatos was sitting on the couch with his wife's head cradled in his lap when Elisa caught herself in the door way. His dark eyes were focus somewhere high above her head, his fingers carding thoughtlessly through Fox's red hair, and Elisa didn't have to look up to know what he was staring at.

Elisa had never really liked the portrait, with it's dark jewel tones and gaudy gilded frame but she knew the significance. That one painting had cost more than Elisa made in a year, but for a man like David Xanatos - for someone that had trouble not giving things monetary value - it probably hadn't cost enough. That portrait showed everything he valued most in this world; his family.

His family plus one.

"Where's Owen?" she asked and it took David a long moment to drag his eyes down to meet hers. Matt was slow in coming to her side meaning that he'd stopped and done his duty as an office; examined the room and maybe even made notes of his findings.

David glanced over his shoulder, as though he needed the reminder that the blond haired shadow wasn't in its usual place.

"Out. Looking."

"You sent him out? Why?" Matt was confused, understandably so, but they didn't have time to stop and explain things to him.

"He said... he promised to bring Alex back," Xanatos looked pained. Elisa had never seen the expression on him before and felt a sharp pang of unwanted sympathy. "I couldn't stop him," he looked down at Fox then, his fingers pausing. "I didn't want to."

Elisa thought of Owen, silent and still and menacing when Xanatos required it of him. She thought of Puck, hovering protectively over the Xanatos heir at every opportunity. She thought of what she was willing to do when her own family was in danger.

"We have to go," she grabbed Matt by the front of his coat and pulled. "We don't have much time."

Claude Frolo would burn down all of Paris for the gypsy girl he lusted for. What would an angry fae do to New York for the child it was honor bound to protect?

(Line Break)

Tony Dracon was, in the end, a weak man and it took very little for him to break. His men on the ground around them, moaning and coughing - some even spitting blood - was more than enough.

"I don't know what his plan was," Tony was winding down. To him David Xanatos' right hand had done nothing but stare from the seat across the table. "All I know is Staine was talking about how he was going to kidnap Xanatos' kid and get some sort of power out of the deal."

"Where?"

It was less a question that it was a command and the first thing the blond had said since sitting down. The first man to fall under Owen's stone fist had yet to move from where he'd fallen and Tony was not so full of himself to believe that he would end this encounter any other way if he didn't cooperate fully.

"The warehouse district; he's been stuffing the place with guns and supplies for weeks," the blond made no indication that this was the information he'd wanted. Tony leaned across the table, speaking calmly because to do otherwise wasn't even thinkable anymore. "You didn't get it from me but I've got the number of his warehouse if you promise to leave me and my guys alone. We all leave happy and nobody needs to tell the cops you were here."

Bargaining after revealing his hand was not the best move, but Tony could hardly hear himself speak over the pounding of his heart. Owen looked at him for a long moment before reaching across the table, oh so slowly, and opening his hand.

"I'm waiting."

(Line Break)

It was well past the time the sun was at it's zenith. In a few short hours the gargoyles would awaken and there would be more eyes out searching for Alexander but Owen had neither the patience nor inclination to wait.

The first of the men fell embarrassingly quickly under Owen's fists - some far harder than others - despite their weapons. He got the distinct impression that a mild looking blond in suit and glasses was not what they had been ordered to protect against.

The next line of defense were better prepared, and armed, than those outside. They too, were not expecting to be faced with a man.

"Hey!" A gun was leveled at Owen's head, but he never slowed. "Stop right-" the man - a thirty something vagrant by the smell of him - wasn't prepared to shoot a man. Staine should have picked his men better. The man went down hard and with little effort. The next got a shot off before consciousness was lost to him though it was wild and very far from the mark indeed.

The third, guarding the door, was made of stronger stuff. This man, with his ginger hair and cold blue eyes, didn't flinch as Owen stalked forward and didn't tremble as Owen reached out.

He also missed his target, but only just.

The bullet scraped along his upper arm, shredding fabric and even burning skin as Owen ran forward but it didn't slow him.

The door guarding grunts weren't important, Owen had to remind himself as his grip tightened around the man's throat. The important thing was to find Alexander and to get him home safely to his family.

Owen's grip didn't loosen.

"Where is Staine?" He asked, voice deliberate and measured. Behind him, on the ground, of the men he'd knocked out earlier was stirring slightly. The other would require medical attention that was unlikely to arrive any time soon.

Not if Owen could help it.

"In-" the man gasped, groping fruitlessly at Owen's hand. "Inside."

The trap wasn't unexpected but the sheer reckless stupidity wasn't.

The door opened too easily for him and the large open space beyond appeared empty. As he stepped into the room, the expected attack came from his right. A man, far better prepared than those outside, flung a thick metal chain like a whip.

Owen stopped the chain with his hand - caught it with the intention of pulling it away from his would be attacker - when the blow came from behind.

Iron again, a pipe perhaps, struck his skull with a resounding crack and Owen went do his knees in the middle of that room.

The warehouse was housing a few small stacks of nondescript crates and from behind these more men came.

Owen Burnett and Eliot Staine had never met face to face before, but they didn't need to to recognize each other now.

"So Xanatos sent his lackey," Eliot wasn't much to look at with his thinning, greying hair and short, heavy stature. Owen knew better to underestimate someone based on looks but this man... this man was nothing new. Nothing special. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but I figured the man would value the life of his only child more."

Dizzy, annoyed and finally tired from the day's exertion, Owen was slow in shoving away the hand that reached down to pat him mockingly on the cheek. He was even slower in pulling back and Staine took advantage, gripping the blond's wrist with a sneer.

"And what did you think you were going to do? Storm the castle and save the little prince?" Owen's jaw clenched. "I said I wanted the f-" Staine stopped suddenly, his beady, black eyes narrowing.

Owen remained kneeling, his wrist caught in the vile man's hand.

"And what's this?" Eliot Staine pushed the sleeves of Owen's jacket and shirt down to reveal a green and purpling welt where the iron chain had caught him, dark stains of color making the veins visible under his pale skin. As he watched, the mark lightened, the dark tendrils receding. "Looks like our friend here has a sensitivity to iron," the brunette announced to his men. "You know, you should really see a doctor about that."

"Where is Alexander?" Owen asked, voice quiet and low.

"The kid for a fairy," Staine said flatly. "That's the deal."

Owen remained silent on the floor for a long moment before pulling his wrist free from Staine's grasp and standing.

"Very well," the blond tugged his glasses from his face, calmly folding and tucking them into his coat pocket. He started to turn, slowly at first and then picking up terrible, frightening speed.

The men flinched back, wind pulling at their clothes and hair. Eliot lifted his chin, watched as the tall figure became small and rose into the air.

"Where?"

The human's cold eyes narrowed and a smug look crossed his face. The Puck's mouth formed a thin, hard line.

"You'll never find him," the man said arrogantly, making a careless gesture with his gun. The dark suited men around him stepped forward, some with guns and others holding iron chains. "And I don't intend to tell you. Now, if you want the little brat to stay breathing," Puck's eyes narrowed "your gonna be a good fairy and put on this nice little necklace here," an iron collar attached to more iron chain, "then I think you and I'll get along just fine."

"Don't do this, Eliot Staine," Puck warned, voice low. "It would be a mistake to get on the Puck's bad side."

"Puck huh?" the man grinned, even dared to laugh. "Of course I don't want to get on your bad side. I've seen your power," his eyes gleamed at the prospect. Puck knew his kind well. "I want nothing more than for you and me to be friends," Puck spat at the floor between Staine's shoes. The man's smile darkened. "But since that doesn't look likely, I'll settle for an obedient fairy pet."

"What must thou think of me," Puck rose slowly into the air above the mortals' heads as his voice grew loud and strong, "to believe I, once favored above all in Great Oberon's court, would play lap dog to a worm like you?" The men shift uncomfortably, tightening their grips on their guns. Their boss only bared his yellowing teeth in a vicious grin.

"I think your gonna be a good little elf or the kid dies."

"Very well," Puck lifted his chin, silver hair flowing around him in a breeze not felt by those below. "_Now comes the time for us to fight_," the Puck's eyes began to glow with power. Staine and his men stumbled back.

"No wait just a min-"

"_But perhaps the sisters had it aright_," Puck spoke over the man, crossing his index and middle fingers over his chest in an X over his breast. "_Twas foolish, Staine, to make an enemy of me_," his small body shown white, blinding the men below. "_Where once was one, Puck now makes three_."

"Wait!" Staine shielded his eyes with his arm, the iron collar dropping forgotten to the floor. The white figure above became wide, twisting and finally separated into three, equal in all ways, bodies.

The glow dimmed.

"Now that is better," a high, shrill voice not wholly unlike Puck's said cheerfully. Staine uncovered his eyes and looked up, sucking in air in shock.

Instead of the one fairy Staine had intended to capture there were now three hanging in the air above.

The one in the middle might have been the one Staine had wanted if its hair had been stripped of it's silvery shine. White hair flowed over thin shoulders, blue eyes bright and mischievous. To this one's right another sneered. Its hair might have been silver too, once upon a time but was now dark, as though stained with ash. Its eyes were wild and it looked at the human's below it with too much interest.

The third, on the white one's left, was silent, impassive, it's blue eyes disinterested. It's hair may too have once been silver but now glittered yellow, almost gold. The coldness with which it looked at Eliot made him tremble.

"Where'd he go?" the man asked, outraged. The three blinked down at him.

"Who?" they asked, the dissonance between the three voices, which might have been the same but for tone, startled the humans.

"Puck!" Eliot shouted. "Who else? The fairy I tricked here with Xanatos' brat! Where is my fairy and who," he glared at them "are you?"

"We are Puck," the one on the end narrowed it's eyes at them, the one in the middle grinned and darker one shrieked with laughter.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Eliot lifted his gun, intent on shooting at the creatures until they gave him what he wanted. The black haired fae flew to him, stopping only just before their noses touched.

"I am Puck," it said, voice wild and high as though it was only barely restraining itself from more peals of laughter. "_I_ mislead night-wanders, laughing at their harm and frights the maidens of the villagery. Called also Hobgoblin, I am he."

Staine jerked back and the fae's laughter echoed around the room as it darted back to the ceiling. The pale blond one moved slowly down ward, it's movements deliberate, until its feet landed softly on the ground.

"I am Puck," it said, voice soft and cool. "I am that shrewd sprite and to those that call to me 'sweet Puck' I do their works and they have good luck. I am he."

The final fae flowed down, loose limbed as though dancing, it stopped by the golden one, not quite touching its fellow.

"I am Puck," it said, voice playful. "It is I that was jester to Oberon and made him smile. I oft times lurked in gossip's bowl called also Robin Goodfellow. I am he."

"This isn't what I wanted!" Eliot yelled. The golden haired one, sweet Puck, frowned at him. "I told you to put on the collar not fall all to pieces!" Robin tilted his head at Staine.

"Well what's the problem?" he asked, dancing slowly upwards again. The golden haired Puck watched him go with interest. "Surely three Pucks are better than one."

"You wished us to be friends," sweet Puck noted, arms crossing over his chest. The darker one, Hobgoblin, turned over, upside down in the air, and opened his arms wide.

"The more the merrier!" he grinned and if his teeth looked too sharp, too much like fangs, then Staine didn't notice; had not seen the teeth of the others to be able to compare.

"Boss," one of the men hesitantly touched Staine's shoulder. "Boss, I don't think-"

"Shut up!" Eliot snapped. "I don't pay you to think," the man fell back, silent.

"Your upset," Robin pouted down at the human. Eliot ground his teeth. "Tell Puck, what do you _really_ want?"

"In exchange for the kid?" Staine was too busy staring at the white haired fae to notice the looks the other two gave him. "I want you to be my pet. My servant."

The fae flew toward each other, varying degrees of frowns on their faces.

"Is that all?" the pale blond asked, clicking his tongue.

"I thought humans were supposed to be fun," Hobgoblin groused.

"Come now Staine," the white haired of the three said reasonably. "You've incited the anger of David Xanatos and threatened Puck with iron and this is what you ask of him? Shall Puck make himself into a dog to whine at you and soil your carpets for all your mortal life?"

"No! I want your power!" Eliot finally snapped. Above him the three shared a smile.

"Power?" asked one.

"Certainly we can give you power," said another.

"Well," the blond one corrected softly, "for a certain definition of 'give'."

"And he'll want a demonstration first, of course."

"_Of course._"

The room turned cold.

"Very well Staine," the trio turned their backs to each other in a triangle, still not quite touching. "As you will it."

"_Foolish mortal who would have Puck as slave_," the white haired one's eyes shone green and bright.

"_And to Xanatos and his bride pain he gave_," the blond continued, his own eyes lighting up. The walls of the room seemed to bleed out their color, the stains becoming just another shade of grey on the concrete.

"Stop!" Eliot screamed. "I order you to stop!"

"_A lesson in power we grant you for free_," the dark haired one's mouth twisted in an ugly grin.

"_A night of much learning_," they intoned together. Staine felt a wind pull at his clothes. "_So. Say. We_."

"Don't just stand there!" Staine turned on his men, shouting. "What are you waiting for?" the color had left everything but the men and the magic creatures above them, leaving the walls, floors and furniture all flat shades of grey. "Shoot them!"

The men startled, lifted their weapons and fired into empty air.

"Find them! I want those freaks caught!"

(Line Break)

Finding the Pucks turned out not to be the hard part.

"This isn't right," Jimmy Carson muttered, holding his gun tight.

"Shut up," on of the other three men hissed under his breath.

"This is a warehouse," Jimmy insisted, the panic rising in his voice. "There shouldn't be this many hallways. I know there weren't this many rooms."

"Shut up," the man snapped again.

"Oh, he's right you know," a voice calmly informed them. The group turned as one, guns raised, facing the white haired magic creature floating slightly above them. It opened its arms, shrugging unapologetically. "We may have been playing with the local geometry, just a bit."

"But only to give you fair chance!" A streak of black streaming hair was their only warning as the three men were knocking back onto the ground by the dark Hobgoblin darting up through the floor at their feet. "Run fast enough and you just might get away!"

"You did remember to add an exit, didn't you?" the largest of the men stood first, and twisted around. The fair golden one, sweet Puck, watched the dark and white dancing in the air.

"Was that important?"

"Whoops. Our mistake," Robin shrugged and that distracted the three of them... for enough.

While Jimmy and the largest of the three, Jonathan, were still stunned, on the ground and now weaponless, this third man - destined to die nameless as far any of the Puck's were concerned - reached out and snatched the blond fae by the neck, holding his gun to the small figure's head.

"Get down here!" he was the fastest thinking of the three grunts and the quickest to recover from shock. Jimmy and Jonathan slowly got up, groping around for their own guns while high above Black and White stared down. "You'll turn yourself over to Staine or I kill your friend!" They didn't move. If anything, Robin and Hobgoblin merely smirked. "Kill one I kill you all right? I said get down here now!"

"You picked the wrong one to play with," white Robin pouted. Beside him Hobgoblin snickered.

"Oh yes. _He's_ no fun at all."

Under his hand the small shape of the golden Puck twisted, shifted and grew. Eyes wide, the man gripping him stumbled back, letting go.

Tall now, with glasses and wearing a charcoal suit, the figure wrapped his own hand around the man's throat.

"I'm not one for fun," Owen said coolly as his hand tightened. Eyes bulging the man struggled against truly inhuman strength. "Not one bit."

"Stop!" Jimmy rushed the pair, just as the man in Owen's grasp stopped struggling. Robin intercepted. "Leave him alone and you can go! You can all-"

"Giving up already?" the fae asked with a pout. "But we've only just begun! Oh... looks like your friend is finished playing too."

The man stared with cold, freshly dead eyes back at Jimmy as a line of blood and drool dried on his chin. With a motion of disgust, Owen dropped him.

"P-please. Please don't-"

"And now begging!" Hobgoblin crowed. "How pathetic. How weak."

"You're a very small man," white Puck slipped a finger under Jimmy's chin, forcing the other man to meet his glowing eyes. "Aren't you?"

And the Pucks started to grow. Taller and taller until the finger that had him under the chin slipped away, bigger than his head.

"Oh God, Jimmy..." a voice boomed nearby and Jimmy turned to watch Jonathan grow too. Bigger and bigger and bigger.

No, he realized with his mouth open wide in a scream, they weren't getting bigger. He was getting smaller.

"Bye bye!" High above, Hobgoblin was a dark mass in the sky. Jimmy, terrified, ran. "Look at him go! It's like watching a lost ant try to find it's way back to the hive!"

"Now for you," Owen turned his gaze from the floor. The last of the three hunters was by no means a small man, but he backed away, hunched and timid, from that gaze. "Whatever is to be done with you?"

Jonathan didn't answer. Jonathan turned and ran, the sound of Hobgoblin's cackling followed him down the hall.

"Time to play! I say we split up and meet back at... Staine?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me~"

"Best idea you've ever had."

* * *

End Note: When Demona summoned Puck through Titania's Mirror, Alexander hadn't been born yet and she wasn't directly threatening David or Fox. In my opinion this was very, very fortunate for her but she did insult him and Puck knew darn well what making her human during the day would be for her. Says something about him that he did it anyways and apparently out of anger, don't you think?

More importantly for this segment: Staine didn't _summon_ Puck and Puck isn't bound in iron chains therefore Puck has no incentive to even pretend to be cooperative.

The HoN reference wasn't a challenge, I just couldn't think of a better way to end that little segment.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Mentoria who requested something too long for me to give (One-shots=Free if I like the idea, 5 chapters= Fanart, 6 chapters = to hard, me no do it :c ) BUT Mentoria did give me a delightfully horrible idea through the request summary and then gave me permission to use it here.

Spoilers: Gathering, Ransom, The Eye, Turf

Warning: This Chapter is almost entirely Torture Porn, Male-to-Female physical abuse

Disclaimer: _Greg Weisman_. _I wish I was Greg Weisman_

* * *

Part 3: A Demon's Dream

Jimmy had always thought that the concrete of the warehouse floor was smooth save a handful of cracks and blemishes. That turned out not to be the case at all. He was gasping and desperate for rest before he even reached a break in the rough heavily worn surface. Only as large as an ant, the surface wasn't mountainous but he stumbled and fell often as unexpected rough spots and dibits in the floor revealed themselves.

He wasn't even to the wall yet when he came to a crack.

"No... no no no..." he fell to his knees, gasping and teary. Something had badly chipped the floor here, the gap was too wide to jump and deep as Jimmy was tall. He turned and saw a doorway - another strange room added at the Pucks' whim - still a long run from where he was kneeling, but it was shelter away from the open floor of the hallway where the giants that had been his fellow criminals were likely to tread.

He stood and started walking again.

(Line Break)

Hobgoblin disappeared first, leaving white and golden Puck's to pick their way across the hall. It was purely by chance that Owen's shoe happened to crush the leg of an insect sized man as that man had stumbled over a crack so small no human would have noticed.

It was pure chance that as his foot lifted it twisted slightly, mangling flesh and bone beyond any chance of repair.

Owen was staring at his hands.

"It's been a long time..." he said quietly. Beside him, white Puck rolled his eyes.

"Think of it like this," Robin said reasonably, or as reasonably as the trickster could accomplish while still being candid, "these men don't know you from Adam. What does it matter?"

"Consistency matters," Owen argued. "Consistency and order are what I _am_."

"Yes," Robin agreed readily. The Golden Puck had always been for order, even at the expense of their fun. "But which is more important here at this time? Consistency?" Robin raised his eyebrows. "Or the use of two hands to help fulfil the promise made to grieving mother?"

Owen lowered his hands.

"That's what I thought," with a knowing smirk, white Puck took the left down a hallway that shouldn't have been there. "When it's all over, you may have your mark of servitude back, but for now," Robin winked and darted away. "Try to enjoy it!"

(Line Break)

Martin suffered an over abundance of muscles and severe lack of both self esteem and brains. It was an easy combination for men like Eliot Staine to take advantage of and Martin knew it, but it hadn't stopped him from taking the job.

He still didn't regret the choices that had lead to his employment when the darkest of the Puck's cornered him at a dead end where there should have been none. Wrists trapped in the magic creature's hands, Martin pressed his back as hard against the wall as he could and wished silently that he might somehow slip through it and out of harms way.

"I'm sorry, alright?" Martin snapped, his tone suggesting nothing of the sort. Dark Hobgoblin loosened his old on the man's wrists. "Sorry about the guns, the traps... even sorry about the stupid kid!"

"Really?" Hobgoblin blinked large blue eyes and looked, just for a moment, childlike.

"Yeah," Martin gritted his teeth. Staine stumbled around the corner just in time to hear the rest. "Its burning me up inside."

It was a strange phrase; he'd probably meant 'tearing him up inside'. Hobgoblin tilted his head, staring like a cat that had caught a small winged insect between it's paws.

"It really is burning you up," Hobgoblin's eyes glowed and Staine, at the other end of the hallway, couldn't look away, even as black smoke began to seep out from Martin's eyes and ears. Not even when the man's mouth opened wide to scream and instead jumped forth a hot white flame. "Isn't it?"

Hobgoblin pulled away, feet folding beneath him as he sat in the air watching Martin burn. Black hair turned ashy grey and the man flailed, his tanned skin turned black and crisp.

The movements slowed, the desperation bleeding away as Martin fell to the floor, his face turning to Staine. Brown eyes blacked and finally - like wax under a flame - melted away, a clear fluid leaking molasses slow from the sockets moments before the flames spilled out from these new holes.

"Don't worry," black hair swirled as Hobgoblin turned, grinning to the man in the hall. Staine backed away, his steps unsteady as the acrid stench of burning flesh assailed him. "I've got plenty of ideas left over for you..."

Staine turned and like so many of his men, he ran.

(Line Break)

Xanatos moved his wife to their bed, settled her with Alexander's teddy bear in a symbolic gesture he refused to acknowledge before making his way to his office.

The security system had suffered a severe malfunction for exactly one and a half hours that morning. No video, no censors, no data.

For the next three hours, without break, he searched the logs of all the employees with enough clearance to even have a chance to view the security footage of the castle, found the list lacking, and instead went for the logs of employees smart enough to get such a thing done.

The list was smaller still, but there was one new name and he could see where the data had been altered. And when he went digging through things he had no legal right to - bank accounts and personal email - David had not one shadow of doubt as to who had caused him the new grief.

Fists clenched in anger, he searched himself for the strength he'd had the first time he'd lost his son and found it, hidden deep in a place he hadn't wanted to return to. He took that rage and that determination and bottled it up. He fixed the records so that this woman's family would be well cared for in the event of her death, found his gun, and went for a walk.

(Line Break)

Tony Dracon was the first person Elisa went looking for because she had learned over the years that if it was criminal and if it was going to be trouble for her, Dracon would inevitably be involved.

His men, smaller in number than the last time she'd seen him, were banged up, bloody and timid as they let her by. Their boss seemed unharmed though he did watch her warily as she positioned herself in front of his desk.

"What happened to your guys Tony? You starting another turf war?" he didn't take the bait. "Someone's in big trouble with David Xanatos right now," there was a flash of something across the gangster's face. Recognition? Fear? Elisa's eyes narrowed and her arms crossed. "Don't suppose you know anything about it?"

"Nope," he reached for his coffee mug and Elisa knocked it away, letting the ceramic smash on the floor. "Destruction of property, Detective? Should I be talking to your superiors?"

"I don't have time for this game," she slapped her hands down on the scarred wood, leaning toward him and willing, with everything she had, that this time things would be straightforward. "I need to know who's behind-"

"Am I under arrest for something?" Dracon asked mildly though his tensed jaw let her know the talking was getting to him more than he wanted to let on.

"Not yet," she had to admit. As much as she wanted to threaten him, as much as she wanted to make something up to put him in cuffs and force the issue, she'd taken an oath and she still believed the system could work. "But my friends'll be awake in just an hour or two and I think you probably want to talk to me more than you want to talk to them."

"If I'm not under arrest then this is harassment," Tony said flatly. "Good bye, Detective."

And that was the end of it. She needled and taunted until finally Glasses - his arm in a sling - asked her to leave. Matt looked up from his slump against the car, saw her face and sighed.

"They'll be awake in a few," he spoke first. "More eyes to help the search."

"More eyes don't help if we haven't got a place to start."

(Line Break)

Jonathan Cross hadn't started working for Staine because he liked villany. The fact was he was good at certain things (intimidation and paperwork), had a strong stomach and Staine paid well. Cross had a family to support after all. Still, Jonathan had never flinched at the hard things. Breaking an 18 year old stripper's arm to get her to sign over her life in one of Staine's contracts, stabbing a security guard in the eye with a pen knife for not paying his dues, stealing helpless babies from their beds at night - it was all par for the course. He'd never regretted it.

Until now.

"No," he backed himself into a wall where there had been an open hall only moments before. "No!" the lights above flickered and the tiny, golden haired figure at the other end of the hall disappeared, replaced by a tall, suit clad man in thin rimmed glasses. The man took a step forward. "I don't know where Staine put the kid. I never knew!"

The man took another step and it seemed to carry him feet.

"Please! I gotta wife and kids at home. Lemme go, I'll do anything!"

"Funny," said the blond man in a soft, cultured voice. He took another step. "Alexander has a mother and father at home. I suppose that's similar."

"Please!" Jonathan tried to press closer to the wall; sweat, hot and salty, fell into his eyes.

"You're the one that took Alexander from his bed," the blond stated. Jonathan started to deny it but the man cut him off with another step. They were nearly toe to toe. "Tell me how."

"I- I can't," Cross had to look up to see the man's face. The florescent lights above gleamed off the glasses, hiding the man's eyes. "Staine'll kill me if I tell."

"Really?" the blond's mouth quirked in a faintly amused pseudo-smile. "Do tell."

"A-are you gonna magic me?" Jonathan forced himself to ask after a moment of tense silence. Above him, the blond head tilted as if in question. "Like the- like what the white one did to Jimmy?"

"No."

"No?" Jonathan felt his spirits lift. He shrunk back again as the faint quirk of lips twisted into a cold grin. "W-" he didn't want to ask but he made the words come out. "Why not?"

"Because," a flash of light caught his eye and Jonathan looked down. A clean, sharp switch blade had appeared, open, in the blond's hand. "I'm the practical one."

It was the last thing Jonathan Cross would ever see.

(Line Break)

"I don't know anything!" Tom Greene - a man with a wife and two kids and no means to care for them save taking the cursed jobs offered to those who looked good holding a gun - cried, waving his arms as though to ward away the fae flying down the hall toward him. Movements graceful and slow, Robin seemed in no hurry to catch the man. "Honest! He just pays me for security! I didn't know anything about any of this!"

Tom backed into a spider's web. And then another. And another...

"I didn't know!" he insisted, steps growing sluggish as he struggled through the strands of spider silk. He waved an arm wildly and it became caught; he shook his leg to pull it loose and it was trapped even more firmly. Tom stopped struggling only long enough to take in his surroundings and then to scream.

Distracted by the magical creature he was facing, Tom hadn't seen the walls and ceiling dripping with fine white strands of sticky thread. He twisted and fought and more fell around him, trapping him more surely than a straight jacket or shackles could ever manage.

"_Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!_" Robin crowed and laughed and pointed. "If only Anansi were here," the white Puck smiled. "You would make him _very_ fat."

Tom Greene was deathly afraid of spiders - Black widows to be precise - and in now, in his fear, he though he saw them, climbing along the webs to come for him.

"Please!" he shrieked, hysterical as his mind made things up for him to fear. Robin turned away, humming to himself as he left. "Don't leave me! Let me go! I'll do anyting... Anything!"

"The itsy bitsy spider~" Robin sang softly as he turned the corner. Behind him, Tom screamed.

(Line Break)

They trapped Staine in a place where the halls made a T-intersection and surrounded him in silence. Whether the attack was coordinated or just happy circumstance, Staine didn't know and the three weren't telling.

"You are mine!" Staine shouted, angry, desperate. "I called you here! I have the boy! You belong to me!" he would insist upon these things till the end, because in his madness he still believed that he was the one in control. He was being cheated out of his prize, he was sure, and if he only shouted loud enough maybe they would remember who was meant to be the master here.

"Oh yes, we are yours," the white one smiled sweetly.

"From now until your death," Staine knew this one must be the golden of the three returned to human form, save stone fist, and using that same cold voice.

"Forever, faithfully," the dark one purred in a voice too dark and dangerous to be compared to honey, "and fatally yours."

"No!" He might as well have stomped his foot and started crying, the Pucks were so amused by this. Even Owen let a smirk tug at his lips while the other two shrieked and howled with laughter.

"We'll give you a running start," white Puck promised. "Like Hide and Seek!"

"I'll count to ten," Owen said solemnly. "That way they can't cheat."

Eliot Staine had seen enough horror movies in his time to know that this was where the serial killer made the mistake; the hunted could turn the tides if they simply ran hard enough and bought enough time.

He turned to run and tripped.

"Ha! Did you see that?!" Hobgoblin's hysteria wasn't catching, but Robin did chuckle. "Like he's got two left feet..." Staine had gotten to his feet again and in his rush to move, missed it when Hobgoblin raised his hand and made a twisting motion.

He didn't miss the sudden stabbing pain in his right foot. Throat going rough and numb from the early smoke and the screaming, Eliot fell to the ground, foot in hand.

He felt a shifting in the very bones, a tearing of the flesh and as he watched a steady stream of hot red began to pour from his shoe.

"You did remember to adjust the placement of the skin and muscles in his foot to accommodate the new bone structure, didn't you?" Owen asked, tone bored. There was a pause.

"I always miss something."

"Ah well," the shrug could be heard in Robin's voice. "What're you going to do?"

"I think he's recovered enough," Owen cleared his throat. "Ten... Nine... Eight..."

Struggling, gasping, weak and unsteady, Eliot put his weight on his left foot and struggled forward.

"Five... Four... Three..."

The halls changed around him; grey lifeless doors changing shape and placement as he went. He darted through one and found himself in another hall, the doors no less stable in it.

Door after door after door in hall after hall after hall. He shouldn't have been able to hear that voice any longer. He shouldn't have been moving fast enough for the count to be so slow.

"One."

"Ready or not~" the dark one sang and Staine could hear it in his soul. "Here we come!"

(Line Break)

Jimmy shrieked and cried and begged and no help came. He sobbed and whimpered and thought of taking his own life to save himself some of the relentless pain and still, no help came.

Finally, the blood loss and shock stilled him, silenced the cries and left him lying in a pool of his own blood. The mangled mess of bone and muscle, blood and skin was not completely hidden by the now gore soaked jeans.

Jimmy thought of his brothers and his sisters and his parent and how every single one of them had been right.

His criminal life was going to be the death of him.

He looked up at the ceiling - so much farther away than it should have been - and tried to make peace with his god.

(Line Break)

Staine was limping along the corridor, practically dragging his right leg behind him, the taste of smoke and burnt flesh still in his mouth knowing without shadow of a doubt that the three fae were still behind him. He knew the building inside and out but he could not find the exits. There should have been so many exits...

There was a pop behind him, the noise cartoons portray bubbles making when they finally burst. With a strangled noise he tried to go faster.

A faint woosh, like a breeze over grass to his right and he stumbled in his haste, going too fast for his tired, burning limbs.

On hands and knees he heard the tap of a shoe heel on concrete. Two black, wing-tip shoes stopped just in his line of vision.

"I told you to stop," he murmured. The fae didn't make noise as they flew to the blond man's side but Staine could feel the air move out of their way as they did. Their own flat booted feet appeared on either side of the black shoes. Staine could tell which boots belonged to which fae by the amount of blood on them. "I ordered you-"

"And with what authority do you think to command the Puck?" asked the white one, his voice holding a hint of amused laughter.

"Did you bind Puck in iron when he appeared to you? Hmmm?" the dark one asked mockingly.

"Did you call Puck through Titania's Mirror with spells binding him to you?" the blond sounded bored and dismissive; he knew the answer and was only seeking to enlighten Staine to his folly.

"I thought-" When he was a thirteen year old boy the bully down the street from his broken down, low-rent house had killed his dog - his only friend. Young Staine, whose father had been a drunk since before he was born and his mother dismissive and too busy for him at the best of times, had never cried so much in his life. But the tears had dried when he'd beaten that bully with a baseball bat. Beaten him dead, in fact. Eliot Staine hadn't felt the sting of tears since that day.

"I thought-"

But he felt them now.

The bloodier pair of boots stepped closer and a hand gripped what hair Staine had, pulling his face up to face a darkly grinning one.

"Thought wrong," Hobgoblin crowed. "Didn't you?"

(Line Break)

Melissa Harding was one of Xanatos Enterprises' top programmers but she had never met the man in charge. She'd seen plenty of pictures though and knew the man with dark rimmed eyes at her door was that man.

"Mr. Xanatos! What can I-" the slap was unexpected. Melissa fell back in a heap, dark blond hair spilling over her shoulders and across her face. The door shut with a click and footsteps stalked ever closer.

"Do you have any idea what your little stunt did?" Xanatos's voice was low and rough. "Do you have any _idea_ what you've cost me?"

"Sir, I don't-" he kicked her, hard in the stomach.

"They took my son!" he wasn't anywhere near tears but it took all his strength not to yell. "That is what you've cost me, Ms. Harding. My _child_."

"I needed... the money. My mother in the hospit-" he slapped her again and she let out a sob.

"My _son_ is in the hands of men who've threatened to murder him if I don't hand over my _best friend_. That's two you've cost me, Ms. Harding. Two of the most precious things in my life," from under his coat he pulled the small gun and silencer. Trembling hands held up in a warding gesture, Melissa whimpered.

"I didn't know," she pleaded. "Please, I just needed the money. I'm sorry. They promised no one would get hurt."

"Your mother's treatments and expenses are covered almost entirely by your insurance," David said flatly. "The property you're looking to buy with your boyfriend in Havana is not. Do you know how much I value my son and my best friend?"

"P-please..."

"More than I value you," he turned off the safety and leveled the gun at her head. Melissa's eyes spilled tears like a fountain. "But as far as I know, they're both fine," he lowered the gun slightly and Melissa sucked a relieved breath. "Do you know what the third most valuable thing in my life is, Ms. Harding? My wife. And do you know what your scheming has done to her?"

"Mr. Xanatos," her voice was steadier than it had been. "Please I didn't mean-"

"It almost killed her," David finished. "That's more than enough reason to rid myself of you."

The silencers available on the market don't do what the movies like to claim. The bang of a gun is still a bang, even if it is lessened slightly.

David Xanatos had been working on a true-to-the-movies gun silencer shortly before becoming legitimate.

He owned the only prototype.

(Line Break)

Staine came to in a dark room, tied haphazardly in a chair. In the dim he could just barely make out the forms of the three Pucks, apparently chatting with each other.

What could three pieces of the same person possibly have to talk about? he wondered silently and then wished he hadn't. Of course it was him. They could only want to talk about him.

"Ta da!" the white haired Robin Goodfellow produced a framed document from the air. Staine lifted his head as far as was possible and read the words "doctorate" and "medicine". "To our dearest, most beloved, well studied and hard working Owen, your doctorate." The dark Hobgoblin cheered and whistled. "And~" another document appeared, floating in the air. "Your license to practice."

The blond, still in human form, bowed to his other parts. The dark Puck clapped.

"Thank you," blond Owen inclined his head almost modestly and reached out, taking hold of the license in his hand. As his fingers touched the document a blinding light appeared above Staine and he felt his clothes change. When he could finally see again he looked down and saw he was in a hospital gown, restrained with leather cuffs to an operating table. Beside him a tray of silver, sharp instruments appeared and blinding light shown from above.

"W-Wait," he gasped out. Giggling, Robin hopped over Staine and the table, wearing a short skirted nurse costume. Leaning over his face, dark Puck dabbed at Staine's sweaty face with a damp cloth. He wore dark grey nursing scrubs and a white mouth mask.

"Hm," the golden Puck, still in Owen's guise, shrugged on a doctor's white coat. That done the tall, pale man slowly removed his watch and dawned a pair of latex gloves.

"It suits you so _well_," dark Hobgoblin squealed, voice high. "Now lets _play_~"

"I can think of a fun game or two," the pale Robin smiled sweetly, touching a long finger to his chin.

"No," Owen took a long, sharp scalpel from the tray and the Black Puck's eyes gleamed. "Now that I'm a doctor... I think I'll perform some surgery."

"Oooh!" Hobgoblin placed his hands flat on Staine's stomach, pushing down hard as he jumped up and down. "I like this game!"

"I want to be the pretty nurse!" Robin cried out, flying to Owen's side. "Oh!" He put the back of his hand against his forehead. "Dr. Burnett, this is horrible! Tragic! I don't think we can save him!"

"Calm yourself," Owen stepped up to the operating table. "We'll save him," he paused and gave Staine a long look. "Or he'll die trying."

"P-please," Staine was still choking on smoke. "Please wait..." they ignored him.

"Oh~" Robin pretended to swoon, falling against Owen's side. "Doctor! You're so _brave_!" Owen put a finger beneath Robin's chin, forcing eye contact.

"No," the blond spoke in the dramatic tones of soap opera star, gazing into the eyes of his other part. "I only do what I must."

"Doctor!" Puck, ash colored hair streaming behind him as he flew between doctor and nurse, cried. "Doctor we're losing him!"

"Then there's no time to waste," Owen moved swiftly, white coat flapping (likely with some magical aid) behind him, and stopped at Staine's right hand. "We must begin immediately."

"But doctor!" Hobgoblin interjected as Owen raised his scalpel. "What about the anesthesiologist?" the three stopped and looked at each other.

"There's no time," white haired Puck urged. Owen nodded his agreement, gesturing to Staine's hand.

"He won't survive the wait. Give him a paralytic, it will have to be enough," Owen slammed his elbow down on Staine's hand, holding it in place.

"Ah!" the human's eyes watered. "Stop! STOP!" the three paused, looking at him. "The kid's in a safe house, just a few blocks over," Owen dug his elbow in harder. "My mother's watchin' him! Givin' him cookies and stuff. He's fine. Go see for your selves!"

"He's delirious!" Robin threw his hand to his forehead again and pretended to faint. Owen stepped over him to grab gauze from the tray.

"Gag him, quickly," the blond ordered, passing the gauze to Hobgoblin. "It's worse than I thought, we have to proceed immediately," the scalpel pressed against the first knuckle of Staine's index finger long before the dark Puck brought the gauze anywhere near his mouth.

Staine screamed.

"Nurse!" The white haired Puck popped up from the floor at the order of the blond. "The biohazard container, quickly now."

There was a pop and a pull and still Staine screamed.

"It's not enough! The infection has spread!"

"Quickly," Owen nudged his glasses up with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his nose, "I need the amputation saw," the dark Puck pulled, from behind his back a long, rusted saw. "Excellent."

(Line Break)

"I can't think of anywhere else," Matt shrugged helplessly. Elisa didn't see the worried look he was giving her as she stared out of her window at the in much need of repair building. "Look. If I needed information on top scale kidnapping and needed it in a hurry I'd go to Joseph Matherson. He's a weasley little jerk and he supplies equipment for all the worst criminals but for the right price he'll rat on anyone."

"Matt-"

"With Dracon clamming up and none of the usual informants panning out with their information what choice do we have?" he interrupted. Elisa faced him finally and saw the set look in his eyes. "We've only got five hours left. Even with the Gargoyles out... Elisa, we have to."

If only to assure herself that they had left no stone unturned, Elisa got out of the car.

The door creaked open with little fanfare and neither bothered to draw their guns because they had no reason to expect trouble here.

Bluestone saw the body first.

"Oh Go-" he turned, blocking Elisa's way and her view, face green. "DOA. Go back to the car and call for a bus."

"What?" Stunned, not thinking, she tried to push past. "You call it in, I'm going in for-" she stopped, having pushed her way past Matt's shoulder, staring at the corpse at the bottom of the stairs. "Oh my-"

"Joe Matherson isn't going to do anyone any good now," he steered his partner by the shoulder, shoving Elisa until she was back out the door. "Come on."

"That was him?" For a brief moment Elisa tried to pull away. "Matt! He was our only lead!"

"And he's dead now," he pulled her to a stop, forcing eye contact with the slightly shorter woman. "We have to call it in and then..."

He trailed off.

"And then we have nothing," Elisa spat. Matt didn't have a good answer for that.

(Line Break)

Staine fell silent some time after they started on the middle finger of his left hand, no longer able to scream. He trembled as he felt the knuckle of his smallest finger pop, dislocated, and felt the burn of the saw tearing through his flesh.

"S-stop," he whispered, faint from blood loss and pain. Owen stepped back, dropping the digit into the bedpan that they'd started using after the pale Robin dropped the biohazard bin and Staine's other fingers went spilling across the floor.

"I think that's enough," Owen stepped back, dropping his scalpel onto the tray. Blood coated the white coat from wrist to elbow; Staine gagged seeing it.

"Well done, Dr. Burnett!" Robin patted the blond on the shoulder, though he had to levitate a bit to reach. "But perhaps we've not done enough?"

"Oh yes," Hobgoblin nodded sagely. "Can never be too careful about these infections. Best to take it all off."

"You're both right of course," Owen conceded, picking up a sharp, hooked instrument that looked like it had come out of a museum with it's pearl handle. Whistling cheerfully, Robin pulled the bottom of Staine's hospital gown up. "Start at the bottom and work our way up?"

"No," Hobgoblin pushed Robin back, floating in the other Puck's way. "I had something else in mind for _that_." Blinking, Robin looked to Owen who in turn lowered his head. Hobgoblin, in low tones that Staine couldn't make out, said something that made Robin fly back, face twisted in rage.

"No!" the pale Puck actually shouted. "No!"

"The choice isn't yours to make," the dark Puck lifted his chin high.

"I said no!" Robin crossed his arms over his chest, pouting like an angry child. Owen, having watched the pair in silence, decided things by pulling Staine's gown back down to his knees. Eliot's trembling eased slightly.

"That's enough," Owen moved to stand by Eliot's head, staring down at the man dispassionately. With a victorious laugh, Hobgoblin returned to the tray of equipment. "Puck."

The other two must have understood which he meant, because Robin darted to the blond's side, child like in how he twisted his hands in the bloody coat and pressed his face into the wet and stained fabric.

"There is more work to be done," Owen continued, looking Staine over slowly. Eliot felt the burn of tears in his eyes. "What else can we remove?"

"I hear eyelids are purely decorational," Hobgoblin offered darkly.

"Humans can live without them at least," Robin, over his little fit, spoke up. The playful blue eyes peaked out at Staine from behind the larger form of sweet Puck in human guise.

"Mr. Cross seemed to survive quite well without eyes entirely," Owen noted. Gasping in mock shock, Robin slapped the larger man on the shoulder.

"Practicing without a license? Why I _never_!"

"Part of my internship," Owen dismissed with a wave of his hand, attention focused on examing Staine's eyelids. "He desperately needed the surgery - his eyes were so far gone that he couldn't even accurately recall the location of the baby he stole yesterday."

"Oh, well," Robin snuggled close, his own small hands leaving red smears and prints on Owen's coat. "That's different then. My smart, brave, handsome Dr. Burnett was brave and handsome and smart before he was even a doctor," the pale fae sighed wistfully. At the instrument table dark Hobgoblin pretended to gag. Owen dropped the hooked instrument back onto the tray and picked up a pair of very small, very sharp scissors.

"Queens," Eliot rasped. Owen pretended not to hear him. "Stripper watchin' him..." Owen carefull pinched the lashes of his right eyelid between forefinger and thumb and pulled up gently. Staine made a strangled noise. "Iron crib so you couldn'- stop! Please!" The once proud mobster cried, desperate. Owen didn't let go but he did stop pulling, cold blue eyes focusing on the man. "An iron box, stripper girl watching after him. Number in my PDA- Please!"

Pale Robin pulled the machine from Staine's pocket and held it up. The screen was cracked. Staine sobbed.

"Show Puck what he wishes to see," the fae ordered and the screen obediently lit up. Robin showed the PDA to Owen who nodded and returned his attention to Staine, lifting his scissors.

"Very good," the blond praised softly. "Now, about these pesky eyelids."

"Wait!" Staine turned his head, pulling his eyelid free of Owen's fingers with a painful jerk. Hobgoblin bounded forward and held his head still. "I told you what you wanted to know! You have to let me go!"

"Oh?" the dark Puck tilted his head, eyebrow raised. "Says who?"

"Puck made no such deal with you, Eliot Staine," Robin crossed his arms and looked, for once, unamused. Owen gripped his eyelashes again and pulled harder.

"And I for one," the blond spoke over Staine's whimpers "do not like to leave things half finished."

* * *

End Note: Yes. Yes, Owen was pretend flirting with himself. From what I understand of the character(s) it's probably par for the course. I say pretend but if you're into Puck/Owen (... I don't even... how- why-... ?) you go ahead and slash to your heart's content. Puck would probably think you're hilarious. The fight on the other hand was very much one personality not agreeing with the others.

Challenge! (I know right?): "Now that I'm a doctor, I think I'll perform some surgery." Name the speaker, show (there's a hint for you) and episode. Offerings are the same. One-shot, pairing and characters of your choice; Gargoyles, Darkwing Duck, Invader Zim blah blah blah. Have fun with that.


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: WE MADE IT! One more chapter and you can go brag about having survived KatanaDoshi's crappy slasherfic. Thanks for hanging on for the ride (good news, I will not do this for Christmas... Valentines on the other hand...).

Warnings: Male-to-female physical abuse, implied torture (really mild chapter all things considered).

Disclaimer: _duh_.

* * *

Part 4: Bloody Dawn

Maria had seen a lot of bad things in her short time on Earth. When she'd been twelve her father had been murdered by gang members looking to earn their tattoos. To pay the bills her mother had taken to working the street. Her sisters had followed suit once they were sixteen and looked old enough to pass for legal.

Maria liked to think she'd been smarter. While her sisters and mother had answered to angry Johns with heavy hands and who demanded an unreasonable percentage, Maria had gone straight to the clubs when she was old enough to pass for legal. She went to the clubs where the big spenders were - inevitably well connected criminals and corrupt politicians - and made sure they were hooked fast. When she did offer "favors" it was on her terms and they weren't cheap. Never cheap.

But then she played favorites with the wrong mobsters and one minute she's on a pole and the next she's their girl, helping to sweeten deals between organizations. Sometimes things aren't sweet enough and sometimes while she's doing her thing with a guy the boss decides this guy ain't such a great bet and shoots him. She learned real early how to get blood out of silk and lace.

So when the boss - a glorified John with a heavy hand, she knows - tells her he's got a job for her, she's ready for the worst. She's fallen down a lot of staircases and run into a lot of doors over the last two years. But then he puts a big iron box thing with some pillows and toys in her living room and says to wait for more instructions and she's less sure.

Then the baby gets dropped off and she thinks it's not even close to being a hard job. She likes kids. She can do this.

The girl, no older than twenty - more likely eighteen - with one arm in a sling and bruise high on her cheek, jumped as the door to her less than humble home slammed open. Beside her, in the iron playpen - more like a cage - the baby was still screaming. She'd tried everything she could think to calm him: toys, stories, food, cartoons on the television; everything save removing him from the cage. She knew what Eliot Staine would do to her if she disobeyed that particular order.

She stood, gun shaky in her good hand. A flash of white and purple flew past her to the playpen.

"G-get back!" the figure resolved itself into a small, child sized man with long pointed ears. "Get away from there!" she released the safety on her gun. The creature ignored her. "I'll shoot!"

The gun was knocked violently from her hand and the girl found herself thrown hard against the wall. Another creature, identical to the first in all ways but coloring, wrapped long fingers around her throat and squeezed.

"Hello there," it grinned at her, dark hair falling into it's face. "Pretty girl~" She knew that tone and that smirk well and started kicking at the empty air where it's legs would have been were it a man and not floating in front of her. "What pretty eyes you have... wanna play?"

"Help me," the white-haired one sounded frantic, desperate as his hands scrambled against the iron locks. Still the baby wailed.

A tall blond man stepped through the shattered door, his carefully tailored suit stained with red. Maria screamed.

"Shhh," the fae, eyes half-lidded, spoke softly in her ear, fingers tightening around her throat. "Hush now or I'll tear out your tongue."

"I can't get it open!" the white one was gripping at the bars now though it looked to be causing him pain to do it.

"I have ideas for all sorts of games," the dark one was still whispering at her. Maria's eyes filled with tears and she tried to pull away. The creature held strong. "We'll start with a maze... every time you hit a dead end I can take a limb," it shrieked with laughter.

"Enough," a strong, cultured voice commanded and the two creatures froze, silent at the order. The man stalked toward Maria and the monster released her throat. She staggered forward, gasping. A strong hand gripped the wrist of her hurt arm.

She looked up into cold blue eyes and tried to pull back. Familiar fingers wrapped around her neck, now from behind.

"Open it," the blond jerked his chin toward the box. Inside the baby had given himself hiccups calling for 'Uncle Uck'. Maria started to shake her head and the hand holding her wrist clamped down like a vice. The blond twisted hard and she screamed. "Open it now," he spoke low but she could still hear it over her own screams. "Or you don't leave this room alive."

(Line Break)

The same unease that had woken her the night before woke Fox again. She sat up, groggy from sedatives and looked around. David sat in a large, wing backed chair at the other end of their bedroom, beside him a laptop rested in sleep mode. She waited a moment, but the unease didn't pass and, unsteady, she pushed the covers off her legs.

The stone was as cold to her feet now as it had been the night before but she ignored her slippers as she made her way, silent but for the padding of flesh on stone, to the door. She put her hand to the wall, helping to lead her back to the silent nursery.

"...Owen?" Fox's voice was shaky. The blond straightened up from where he was bent over the crib. There was something dark staining his clothes from the knees of his trousers all the way up to the elbows of his jacket.

"He's fine," the blond said softly. Fox nearly fell in her rush to the cradle. Laying peacefully asleep, Alexander didn't stir as his mother touched his face and soft orange hair, assuring herself that he was real. That he was safe. Beside the redhead, Owen shifted silently.

"Thank you," Fox breathed softly, her heart slowing finally after what had seemed a century of frantic beats. Owen shifted again.

"I have something for you," he said softly. Fox frowned at his voice, looking up to his shadowed face. Even in the pre-dawn darkness of the nursery she could see something wasn't quite right; that what she was looking at wasn't quite Owen. His hair looked dirty, as though the pale gold had been darkened by soot or ash. Behind the red splattered glasses his eyes looked wild. "A present," he reiterated after a moment of silence. Fox opened her mouth to ask what but the man beside her was suddenly gone. She heard the thud of something large striking the stone behind her and the groan that followed.

She turned and took a step back in shock.

The man was in a bad way. His fingers were gone, leaving bloody stumps where the first knuckles should have been. His lips were stitched together with a thick black cord, the wounds bloody and ragged as though he'd tried to speak, or scream, despite the restriction.

No eyelids, she noted almost dispassionately, the red remains of which had already stopped bleeding. The man looked up at her and made a pleading, keening noise.

Fox felt a small body press against her back and startled. Thin arms wrapped gently around her waist. From the corner of her eye she saw dark hair flowing unnaturally; a pale face and pointed ears pressed against her shoulder.

"I thought you'd like it," the voice was near Puck's - her Puck's - but higher and closer to the chaos their friend and protector had always kept strictly controlled. "Still alive though. As far as I'm concerned alive means still a threat~" the body pressed closer and Fox felt a tingling from her chest out through her hands.

She knew the feeling, that rush of energy, hot and wild. Only twice had she ever, in desperation, released it. The one to save her son and then again, more recently, in her hysteria and pain.

"Hey," the voice was soft, coaxing. "Wanna learn a neat trick?"

Fox felt her lips twist up at the corner.

"Sure," she purred. She felt more than heard her new friend chuckle. "Sounds fun."

(Line Break)

Elisa Maza and Matt Bluestone weren't the ones to find the warehouse. That honor was left to a security guard that had put off doing his rounds in favor of watching television. The guard he'd relieved had put off rounds in favor of more unsavory pursuits, likely influenced by the screams not quite silenced by the warehouse walls.

The police found Tom Greene, hysterical and beyond their ability to help where he was huddled against a wall, screaming himself mute over spiders and webs. While paramedics sedated him in preparation for transport to a mental health facility, the wheel of their gurney ran something over.

The something was so small and insignificant the red smear it left on the concrete floor and rubber wheel gained no special attention.

The only people to notice Jimmy Carson's disappearance were his mother and his sisters and his brothers and they all knew without knowing that his career choice had killed him.

Melissa Harding's death wasn't reported for a week. Her mother's hospital bills were paid in full for the rest of her life so there was no reason for the hospital to call her or try to make contact. Xanatos Enterprises records showed that the young woman had quit the week before her disappearance, her final days there having been for formality's sake only, her coworkers all agreeing that she had been distant and uneasy around them.

Her boyfriend, apparently having cleaned out the apartment and Melissa's bank accounts, was charged with her murder.

Joey Matherson simply got loud and drunk one night and fell down the unstable stairs that so many of his girlfriends had had trouble with. The police never investigated further.

Maria wasn't stupid; she knew a second chance when she saw one. Maria quit the club, turned her back on the mobsters claiming to lover her and got a job as a waitress in New Jersey - the farthest she could afford to get away. At the little cafe she met a good man that tipped well and didn't expect much of anything from her except love and fidelity. It was a nice change.

* * *

A/N: Remember that when we first meet Fox and David in the show they are neither one of them good people and the fae we're introduced to tend to be self-centered and self-serving. I'll accept Xanatos's change of heart and I'll buy Fox calming down after 'Ransom' but while tigers do change their stripes they never stop being tigers. Oberon's orders bound Puck's magic to be used only when he was "protecting or training the child". Well, if Staine's still alive that makes him still a threat and children do need to be protected from threats...


	6. Epilogue

A/N: DONE! See end notes.

Spoilers: The Gathering

Warnings: None

Disclaimer: _Don't own it_

* * *

Epilogue: A Red Moon's Rise

David watched his wife, humming as she walked, carry their son across the room to the carpet to play.

He knew, without being able to pin point exactly what was setting off his mental alarms, that something was very off about her besides the obvious of having just suffered through a second kidnapping of her only child.

It was her eyes, he decided after another few moments of silent watching. Ever since he'd woken early that morning and found her rocking their apparently unharmed son in the nursery, there had been something slightly off about her eyes. They looked like they had the week following Alexander's birth.

Too green, too bright.

Too _fae_.

Silently, David pushed away from the door frame and walked down the hall. In another room the tv was showing blurred pictures of a crime scene. Frowning he stepped closer, turning the volume up as the reporter - looking ill - said something about mass killings.

"-have found the bodies of seven men, three of whom have been long suspected of mob connections. The police are refusing to comment on whether or not this could be a case of inner politics turning bloody or a vigilante serial killer but the mortician we interviewed said that the bodies looked as though they had been," the woman closed her eyes and swallowed, "tortured over the course of several hours. Neighbors claim to have heard noth-"

The tv went black and David turned to look back at the door. Owen nodded to him faintly from where he stood, remote in his hand.

"Owen," David greeted mildly, giving the man a careful once over. Nothing looked out of place. Even his eyes, which David had worried would give some sign of wrongness as Fox's had, were normal.

"Sir," Owen returned, stepping to the side in order to allow David to exit the room. As he did the blond tossed the carefully aimed remote back onto Hudson's favorite chair. "Mrs. Xanatos is looking for you. She has ideas for a family outing," the blond paused. "Honestly sir, I'm surprised to find that you aren't hovering at Alexander's side as well."

"He's quite safe with his mother," David started down the hall, his brow furrowed with worry. "Owen," he stopped and the blond stopped with him. David paused, searching the eyes of the man he called friend once more and found nothing wrong with the blue orbs. "Owen what happened last night?"

"Alexander was safely returned to his home," the blond repsonded flatly. David's mouth pressed into a hard line "and the threat to your family was nuetralized."

Alright. He trusted the man in front of him implicitly and considering his own nightly activities... Still. There was Fox to consider.

"Fox isn't-" he took a breath and reformed the sentence a few times mentally before choosing the statement that would get him the direct answer he wanted. "My wife seems different today," the darker man said finally. "She's practically glowing."

There was a distinct pause while Owen seemed to consider this.

"It will pass," he said finally. David narrowed his eyes at the other man. "In less than a week I would imagine. It's nothing to be concerned over. Since discovering her family origins I'm rather surprised we haven't seen more of these spells."

"Alright," David would accept that explanation like he would accept anything else this man told him; without doubt and with no suspicion. He put his hand on the blond's shoulder and together they made their way back to the living room.

If the threat was gone and his son was safe, that was all that mattered.

The End

* * *

A/N: I've wanted, badly, to write a supernatural slasher fic for a while now and I had it in my head what the 'villian' would look and act like (which is Puck but darker and cheerfully vicious, incidentally) but no vehicle for the idea. Since I try very had to keep characters consistant and to make sure they at least strongly resemble those we met in the show I could not, in good consciousness, use Puck or Owen as a villan without muddying things up with a third personality. You'll note that "Robin Goodfellow" assisted and observed, but never actually hurt anyone while Owen never used magic (though he broke character on me more than once by over playing his part as "crazy surgeon"). I apologize if Hobgoblin struck you as an OC because he wasn't supposed to be one.

It would have helped (rather a lot) if you not only had working knowledge of the play but had seen it performed or at least viewed one of the screen adaptations as I think they highlight the personality quirks rather well.

"Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook." and "Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not?" - Typical Puck/Robin as we know him.

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" and "Cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make poor females mad."- distainful Sweet Puck/Owen.

"Up and down, up and down. I will lead them up and down." And, a bit more telling "

He murder cries and help from Athens calls. Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears  
thus strong, Made senseless things begin to do them wrong; For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch; Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch."- Hobgoblin's work, taking glee in the confusion, fear and exhaustion of his victims.

So I didn't just yank the three Pucks idea out of thin air and the Three (one blond, one white and one dark) clearly gave me the initial idea of one being (one mind, really) in three different bodies. I thought about making the crazy one a redhead (inside joke, don't mind me) but I thought you all would appreciate the color-coding more.

I don't usually write background characters. It is implied in my stories that there are other people in the area/wandering through the background and any character with a name is either going to disappear with no life detail at all in a few seconds or will be reoccuring (see Coffee Intern Girl of my other fics) and well loved in my mind but left relatively undefined.

I used this fic as an opportunity to explore the background characters. Joey, Jimmy, Jonathan, Martin, Tom and Melissa SHOULD have all been faceless cannon fodder. It would have been much easier for me to just use them as such but I wanted to practice adding depth to the story by giving them lives beyond the criminal deed they did to deserve their deaths. On that note, sometimes they took my by surprise by expanding far beyond what I planned or wanted. Maria's scene was one of the first I planned (I wanted the ending written before anything else to ensure that I finished) and Joey's intro was originally flat - he was just supposed to be the first torture scene as a sort of preview for what you guys were getting into. I got to the end, after having decided he was a drunk and an abusive boyfriend and decided to add the pushing girlfriend's down the stairs quip because I was in that sort of mood. Originally the girl he shoved was named Jeniffer but then I remembered the beaten up little stripper in a sling I had waiting in chapter 4 and decided to weave them together.

You'll have noticed an over abundance of J and M names. I got clever with the backgrounds, I never said anything about being creative with the names.

Thanks for joining me for the ride. I ALMOST made my deadline. Missed it by about an hour. Oh well.


End file.
